Strategic significance of Tabqa

With the liberation of Tabqa city and the Tabqa Dam, the corridor to Aleppo will be closed. The Turkish state’s logistical and military support line to ISIS and SNC gangs will be broken. Thus ISIS will enter the period of annihilation.

ANF - MAHİR YILMAZKAYA

RAQQA

Monday, 27 Mar 2017, 13:00

With the liberation of Tabqa city and the Tabqa Dam, the corridor to Aleppo will be closed. The Turkish state’s logistical and military support line to ISIS and SNC gangs will be broken. Thus ISIS will enter the period of annihilation.

STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF TABQA

Taking the city of Raqqa, the most vital crossing point in the regional relationships, means to achieve both the psychological and the military and political upper hand. But there is also the city of Tabqa and the dam, on an even more significant location than Raqqa. With the success over Tabqa city and dam, the corridor to Aleppo will be closed. The Turkish state’s logistical and military support line to ISIS and SNC gangs will be broken. Thus ISIS will enter the period of annihilation.

Breaking this line will bring about heavy blows dealt to ISIS and SNC gangs in the areas they have invaded in Syria. And of course as such, the Turkish state will be impacted. With the liberation of Tabqa, a period of total annihilation will begin for ISIS gangs. By liberating the Tabqa city and dam, SDF forces will shake up the current military and political balance once more and come out victorious in both areas.

With the Rojava Revolution, the Kurds will have taken another important step in protecting the different ethnic and faith groups they live together with from the attacks of gangs like ISIS, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al Sham and the Sultan Murat Brigade. This way, they will have mostly eliminated the threats of attacks and dissolution against the Northern Syrian Democratic Federation that consists of different peoples and faith groups.

The Kurds will also have come together with the peoples in Syria on the basis of equality, freedom and justice, through this heavy price they have paid.

ISIS FOUNDED THEIR OWN SYSTEM OF SHARIA IN THE CITY

After ISIS gangs took total control of the city, they founded a system of sorts with the locals and former government workers. Within the framework of this system, they implemented sharia laws and founded institutions like the sharia courts, sharia police and sharia security in the city. They appointed “governors” to all places they invaded. These governors were supported by emirs responsible for one service of the administration each. The so-called governor of the ISIS gangs in Tabqa today continues to be supported by the region’s emirs in this framework.

It is impossible to resist the ISIS practices in Tabqa or to protest them. The list of people punished for their actions that are criminal according to ISIS’ so-called law is very long. They have implemented practices like public beheading, torture, stoning and executions.

For this reason, people who stayed in the city have adapted to the ISIS gangs’ invasion to some point because there is access to security, some semblance of law, services and food. But lately, as Russia and the international coalition led by the US intensified their aerial bombings, energy and water supplies have dwindled. Life has become much more difficult for civilians. For example, because most of the oil refineries have been bombed, there is a fuel shortage.

Most of the women stationed in this brigade are the wives of ISIS gang members. The duty of these women in ISIS’ so-called brigades is to punish the women whose clothing don’t comply with the law and to torture female prisoners.

Women have to use a niqab that includes a black veil that covers their whole bodies from the top of their heads to their ankles. Women and girls aren’t allowed to leave their homes without an adult male relative (usually their fathers, brothers or husbands) present. Women stay locked inside homes for these reasons and to avoid being forced to marry gang members.

Wives of ISIS members who die are married off to other ISIS members. Gang members abuse the women as sexual slaves.